Wonton Soup

Today
at the Chinese restaurant,
I watched
my mother try to eat
Wonton soup.
I watched her hand tremble
and shake the clear broth
as if she were in an earthquake,
or on a boat being tossed about in a storm.
She looked like she was ninety,
not seventy two.

One Week

They feed him turkey,
and ribs,
and cheese,
even when I ask them not to.
They refuse to bathe,
or walk,
or look in the refrigerator for roast beef
and bread.
They would rather call
and complain
and tell me there is nothing to eat in the house.
Lentils and rice are no good.
Nor is kale,
or anything of the sea.
Only animals
with warm blood
seem to be on the menu.
My father is convinced protein
can only come from one source.
So dinner is a fight,
and lunch is a fight,
and breakfast is a fight.
I cannot be the good daughter.
I cannot cook for them,
and clean up after them,
and bring them two dollar bar-b-que sandwiches on Sunday.
I need them to live somewhere else,
like Tucson, or Mexico.
Somewhere warm where I can walk on the beach with them,
cut up papaya for them,
bring them flowers,
and then gripe about the job some other poor sap is doing with them.
I am tired of being told “how awful I am.”
I am tired of being compared to my sister.
I am tired
and they have only been here
one week.

A Reprieve

I am looking for a reprieve,
a respite,
Somewhere to escape the chaos
of them.
My life is trips to the JCC,
poker days,
senior fitness morning,
and aqua for arthritis.
I am trying to be the good daughter,
trying to cook their meals,
and do their laundry,
but they are an uphill battle
impossible to climb.
My father gripes when I ask him to help
with any cleaning at all.
My mother walks down the hall
barking at her own shadow
convinced she hasn’t taken her pills
when she has.
My mind is a maze of “what if’s?”
What if they could live independently with a maid
and someone coming by to give them medicines?
Would that be cheaper than assisted living?
Or is it completely out of reach?
And in another year?
My father is worsening,
unable to find my house when it is only three blocks away.
They are a terrifying proposition.
Everything I do is met with gripery.
So now I am at a coffee house
just trying to breathe,
just trying to feel
whatever it is I used to feel
before they arrived.

Without Within

There is so much less
to fight against when they are here.
My mind
is free of the treadmill
of worry and love.
Night after night
there is only
the two of them.
How much easier
it is
to have insanity with you
than inside you.

Into The Lion's Den

They are coming tomorrow,
coming like the tornado that hit North Carolina.
The only difference is those people had no warning.
I, on the other hand,
have had over a week’s notice,
but I still have no where to hide.
Tonight, I am so nervous
trying to prepare for the unexpected and the inevitable.
The griping of my father as he opens the refrigerator looking for meat.
The fussing over showers and changing shirts.
My mother
falling into tubs
and down hallways
wandering off in search of magic dragons.
Her incessant questions of my marital status.
Her lack of boundaries
in conversation
if I should take her out in public.
It feels like a crazy circus has come to town.
But there is no trapeze
and no Fat Lady,
just the tight rope
I must walk across
day after day
as I try not to fall
into the lion’s den
below.

The Incubus

comes on Tuesday
to dine with me on brie and bread.
Not even a letter from my ex-wife
could free me from my engagement.
I can feel doom
sailboating down upon me
when the doorbell rings.
The incubus reads to me from the New Yorker
while I sit at the piano
playing Brahms.
It is always the same discussion.
My bellybutton propagandized
like a clock that never stops.
I weigh in on
the library,
the cathedrals,
CBGB’s,
the poem the chicken couldn’t use.
We are most decent
sometimes
he and I,
locked in our green room
waiting
to begin.

What I Want

Is the rush of caffeine
in my bones
The sweet dark smoky flavor
down my throat.
The clear headed alertness that comes
when I give in
to the cup.
What I want,
is his cock
inside me.
The deep thrusting
of flesh into flesh.
The smell of sex
on my skin.
The wet
marks of passion on my bed.
The screams of orgasm.
The muted whispers that follow.
What I want
is to know
that I am more than my sadness,
more than my poems,
more than my pathetic childhood.
What I want
is to taste all of me,
to know all of me,
to revel in my me,
to let myself
free
to explore.
Everything.

The Sun Dog

The sun never came,
like I promised the dog,
and we both sat
in the house
waiting.
The long walk postponed
like so many before.
Hopes dashed
on leashes and biscuits.
Now
the light fades so early.
He is on his bed
stretched long
staring at me
with guilt inducing brown eyes.
Winter is here
and once more
I am left waiting
a liar.

Going To Berkeley

Was like going to the Disneyland of the Yuppies.
Blocks of restaurants
with Chinese, Thai, Indian and
Burmese food.
Children wearing a cacophony of colors,
mismatched so perfectly
by their mothers as to be hip.
Intellectuals dining on coconut rice
and discussing world peace with prophetic clarity.
The chai drinking caffeine addict
wearing corduroy and carrying a hemp tote
for his Macintosh.
Sandals and jeans.
Braids and mochas.
Women carrying yoga mats
and nibbling seaweed jerky.
The parade of Spanish nannies
walking up and down the streets
pushing little blonde haired tots in strollers.
Not a pro ‘W’ sign could be found.
Anywhere.
It almost made me miss Nashville.
It almost made me feel sorry for George W.
Almost.

Haunted Theatre

I am glad she is still alive.
She hadn’t written in days
and I had begun to imagine the worst.
Looking at the photo of them,
I imagined he had killed her,
stuffed her in to a box,
and driven off to Utah
or some other remote state.
I imagined her lifeless body,
her heavy lifeless body,
shoved into a trunk,
wrapped in burlap
and tossed into the Harpeth River
where it would float downstream
until a jet skier found her.
It is like that with me.
I always imagine the worse.
My brain is a constant stream of terrifying scenarios.
Last night,
when my boyfriend didn’t call
twenty minutes after yoga class ended,
I was sure he had been in a car wreck.
I was sure the next call would be from the police
telling me to come identify the body.
I imagined how he would look on the table,
his body bruised, one eye missing,
mouth frozen like a dead sea bass
trying to suck in one last breath of air.
I imagined what I would have to say to his mother.
That didn’t turn out so good either.
All these thoughts make me wonder if I am the illegitimate daughter of Stephen King.
But then I remember
my mother.
She was always sitting on that turquoise ottoman
in the den
reading headlines out loud to us.
This one was murdered.
That one was stabbed.
Another was poisoned.
A man was beheaded and found in his apartment four days later
after his cat’s constant meows alerted the neighbors.
It never stopped.
Night after night.
Looking back at it,
I think she enjoyed scaring me,
like she were some kind of weird female Vincent Price
and we were prisoners in her 5,000 square foot Haunted Theatre.
I wish she had read me the weather instead.

Halloween Promise

The jack-o-lanterns glow.
The children scream.
Costumes
of witches
and poodles
and pirates.
Fathers dressed like mothers.
Mothers snapping photos.
All
in the neighborhood where every body goes.
There were thousands of us.
Hundreds of bags of candy handed out.
As I stood there,
eating my Kit-Kat and a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup,
I decided
I will trick or treat
till I am ninety.